Advanced Vocabulary 8

1. ADORN: To decorate

  • She adorned the christmas tree by adding ornaments to it.
  • When you adorn something you decorate it to make it look beautiful.
  • Most of the people only spend their time, money and effort to adorn their bodies but not their minds.
  • On diwali, everybody adorns their house with lights.
    Politicians in our country plunder ancient buildings to adorn their palaces.

2. ACRID: Bitter, pungent

  • What’s that acrid smell. Did someone slaughter an animal here?
  • When I climbed in the bus in the morning it was so crowded and there was an acrid smell in the air.
  • The acrid smell of cigarettes burned her eyes and brought tears to her eyes.
  • That tea you made me have left an acrid taste in my mouth.

3. REFUTE: To dispute, argue.

  • To refute a call from a referee is both futile and useless.
  • I refute the claims you are making, they are false and I have proof.
  • The accused refuted the charges levelled against him.
  • When you refute something you don’t agree with it, you dispute it and even argue.

She always refutes any statement I make, I think she hates me.

4. STOIC: Impassive, unmoved by extremes of emotions.If you store your emotions inside of you and remain outwardly calm, you are by definition stoic.

  • He is so stoic, no matter what I do. He doesn’t move.
  • He became stoic when his wife died. Now, he just doesn’t care about anything.
  • She turned and studied his stoic profile carefully.
  • I become stoic when I don’t know how to react.

5. ABASH: To make embarrassed or ashamed

  • A bashful person is easily abashed.
  • She was abashed by her lack of preparation.
  • When I saw how talented my competitor is, I was greatly abashed.
  • There is no reason to feel abashed, we all go through it.
  • I felt pity for him when I looked at his abashed face.

6. ADULATION: Praise, Respect, Admiration
Many young children look up to their parents with a certain amount of adulation.

  • I made him my lifelong friend because of my adulation for him.
  • People’s adulation for me is because of some great habits that I’ve developed in myself over the years.
  • Gandhi is an object of adulation for many people worldwide.
  • No matter what you do, you will enjoy my adulation as you are my teacher.

7. REITERATE: To repeat
Because I didn’t hear it clearly the first time, the front office clerk reiterated the rate for the night’s lodging at the hotel.

  • I reiterate, “The benefits of a disciplined life outweigh the benefits of an undisciplined life.”
  • Let me reiterate what you said to me when we first met.
  • Don’t merely reiterate examples already given by other.
  • To make a presentation effective you have to reiterate the main points in the end.

8. REMINISCE: To think over and discuss the past.

  • Because many people miss the good old days, they like to reminisce about them with their friends.
  • When you grow old you tend to reminisce your youthful days.
  • I reminisce my time spend with my teacher, I learnt so much from him.
  • Don’t reminisce the past but look towards the future.
  • Now that I am successful, I reminisce the period when I worked so hard, when I struggled everyday.

9. SACRILEGIOUS: Unholy, profane

  • Because the spanish viewed the religious sites of the aztecs as both pagan and sacrilegious they decided to raze them and build churches in their place.  
  • Many of his actions seemed sacrilegious to the people.
  • Don’t say that, it’s sacrilegious.
  • Sacrilegious remarks are not taken kindly by some fanatic people.
  • That documentary was full of sacrilegious people who made fun of god.

10. ALLURE: Pull, attraction,

  • A fishing lure is designed to have a certain allure for fishes.
  • Books have a certain allure for me. I just want to read all of them.
  • Our culture has an allure that attracts people from all over the world to India.
  • This hotel has many great things but its main allure is its atmosphere.
  • The main allure of this village for tourists is not its beauty but its history.